


Do What You Gotta Do (Five Pieces Of Advice Ben Completely Ignores)

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Knocked Up (2007)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:43:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben/Alison. Everyone has to have their say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do What You Gotta Do (Five Pieces Of Advice Ben Completely Ignores)

**Author's Note:**

> I was totally jazzed when I got my assignment, because while I don't know Mosca personally, she's brought me a lot of joy over the years through her participation in the breathe_poetry community on LJ. So thanks, Mosca! I hope you come back and read this little note.   
>  I know you said no holiday fic, which is why this *totally* isn't, except for, um, some of it happens on a holiday that you might recognize? But that's not what it's *about*. That was just an excuse to get a few lines in. So, um. Sorry? I'm a crackhead.   
> Beta-wise, I must thank arabella_hope, because I can never do anything without her support and approval, and also purestvixen for looking it over and laughing at my jokes.
> 
> Written for Mosca

 

 

1.

_Go back to Canada, you homely-ass alien motherfucker. - Jonah_

Ben can't stop laughing. Seriously, he tried and it hurt somewhere in his gut that probably shouldn't have anything to do with the muscles used to produce laughter.

"Dude," Jay says, eyes all squinty. "It is our right as foreigners to enter your land of opportunity in search of better things. It's the American dream!"

The kid's all curled in a ball at one end of the couch, stripped to his briefs, looking like a pile of uncooked chicken wings, all elbows and knees and tendons. Ben's either hungry or about to puke. Maybe both.

"S'right," Ben says. "Rags to fuckin' riches, man. We have a right to eat your processed cheese slices, smoke your tragically inferior weed and find us a chick that'll let us in the backdoor anytime we want. Because we believe in the dream, dammit! And the dream believes in us."

"Oh, _hell_ yeah," Jonah says, his previous stance on the matter lost in the thin ribbon of smoke drifting out of his mouth. "I gotta get me some of that all-American anal penetration. That shit's _tight_."

"And by 'we'," Ben says, braying with laughter, which wasn't quite his intention when he opened his mouth. "By 'we', I mean me, because there is no fucking way me and Jay are even from the same planet."

Jay looks up from trying to lick his own nipple, says a half-hearted, "Heyyy," and then returns to the task.

The bong makes its way into Ben's hands, but he's too freaked out by Jonah's high-pitched drone to take a hit.

"Greetings from planet Canada, home of the magnificent beaaaaver. May we commence to suck your baaaalls. We come in peaaaace."

He's still doing robot arms when Jason appears at the bathroom door, pants half-buttoned, all sweaty, like he's taking a break mid-shit.

"Benjamin," he says. "Am I to understand your ladyfriend and the mother of your child allows you full and free anal access?"

"No, man," Ben says, all tight and high-pitched, because it's all so simultaneously tragic and hilarious, he can hardly take it. He sets the bong on the upturned fishtank that's passing for a coffee table and clears his throat. "Not even close."

"My condolences," Jason says, and disappears back into the bathroom.

The next day, Ben googles a practice U.S. citizenship test and spends his lunch hour screwing around with it before getting frustrated and looking up the real thing.

 

 

2.

_Don't touch me. - Alison_

Somehow, her feet are always freezing. The sun could be going supernova, both of them blinded, skin frying and frittering off, and in their final moments she'd still manage to press cold toes into the back of his knee, have him yelping and twitching.

Ben tries to roll her away, gets an ornery grunt in response, and a firmer press of her frigid toes into his flesh. He hisses.

"Wait, so you can subject me to your lizard toes all you want, but if I touch your boobs I'm somehow violating the sanctity of your personal space?"

"Yuh-huh," Alison says, burying her face in the pillow. "Too tired."

"Double standard," Ben says. "Total double standard."

He sneaks his hand into her t-shirt anyway, cups her left breast. He'll never get over the way they feel when she's lying on her back, all flattened and shaped by gravity, falling away from each other like uneven mounds of custard.

"I don't have lizard toes," Alison says, uncertain. Her eyes are closed, but she's smiling, so this is probably okay.

"You do," Ben teases. Squeezes her tit like it's helping him make a point. "You have, like, cold-blooded claws. When's the last time you trimmed your toenails?"

"No fair. I'm a mommy now. Way too busy to keep up with foot hygiene."

"Oh yeah," Ben says, pulling himself closer, breathing in the smell of her, baby powder and milk, sweat and her pear-scented deodorant. "All those hours of, uh, hardcore foot upkeep. It's a wonder you ever left the house before I met you. Thank God I saved you from _that_ , huh?"

He lets his fingers drift down her stomach, long and lazy, strokes at the skin just above the band of her panties and watches the way she shivers involuntarily. She's never been shy about sex, always says exactly what she wants, but these days it's different, with the kid in the next room and nothing but a fragile moment to themselves every once in a while. It's a constant, frustrating battle between sex and sleep, and he gets it, he really does, because he's feeling it, too, so he lets his hand drift back to his side.

"Hey. Woah," she says, squirming a little. "Where'd you go?"

He smirks. "Thought you were too tired."

"That was before," she says, curving her back and sliding her panties down like it's no big deal, and the best part is, it totally isn't. "Try to keep up."

Yeah, Ben's pretty sure Alison is the best thing that's ever happened to anybody.

 

 

3.

_Let the infant self-soothe. - Richard Ferber, M.D._

"How can you buy that bullshit?" Ben says, raising his voice now that it's obvious they're not going to wake the kid up.

"Hello," Alison says. "You were pretty gung ho on it, too, until twenty minutes ago."

He gets to his feet, then she stands up, all defensive, like he's about to make a run for the baby's room, which maybe he was. He goes to the fridge instead, stares at the cheese compartment in the door, grabs an olive jar, puts it back. Stares some more.

Amy's cries are intense. Full-bodied wails, soaked in pain and far more angst than Ben's ever heard in anyone's voice before, and this is his kid, dammit. His kid, who sounds like the world is ending around her.

"Yeah," he says, then turns around to find that Alison has penned him inside the open fridge with her freakishly long arms. "Yes. Okay. I thought it was a good idea. But that was before she started crying like that! That's not normal crying! That's, like, some hairy guy climbed in my window and is doing evil, perverted fucking things to me kind of crying!"

Alison's hand flies to her forehead, like the image physically hurts. She backs away, swats at him, exasperated.

"She's fine, alright? She's _fine_. She's gonna get tired and then she'll go to sleep, and then _we'll_ go to sleep, and it's gonna be awesome, alright? It's gonna be great."

"Oh, yeah?" Ben says, and maybe he's losing it, because he's actually yelling now, loud enough to drown out the cries from the nursery. "Because I think the fact that she's probably being kidnapped right now is going to be a bit of a drag later on, but that's just me."

"She's not being kidnapped!" Alison says. Grabs him like she's about to shake him, but then seems to reconsider, like she's annoyed at how dramatic it'll look, so she just says, "Stop watching Dateline NBC. It's making you fucking psychotic."

Amy's cries crescendo, then she stops for a breath and begins again at a more reasonable volume. Ben rubs his eyes, lets out a shaky breath.

"Alright," he says. "I know."

"Alright?" Alison says, leading him back to the couch.

"Alright."

He makes it through the weather report and half an Allstate commercial before the renewed force of Amy's wailing steals the last of his sanity.

"It's just," he says, and Alison must hear something in his tone because she sighs so hard her bangs flop. "It's just, she's in there all alone, I mean, for all she knows, we're not answering her cries because we're dead or something. Those could be cries of grief for her poor dead parents, and we're sitting here, what. Training her? Like she's a fucking basset hound? What the fuck is that?"

Alison puts a hand up in defeat, and Ben almost knocks over a lamp on his way to the kid. She wants him there, he'll be there. That's just the way it's gonna be, baby books be damned.

 

 

4.

_Don't eat it, man. Nothing good can come from this. - Pete_

"I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna. And then you'll bow to the king of Outback Steakhouse, my friend."

"Ben. Ben, step away from the steak."

It's glistening, sitting there on some kind of serving platter, big enough to make him feel like Fred Flintstone.

"Yabadabadoo," Ben says.

"Dude."

"It calls to me, man. It won't be denied."

He slices off a chunk and takes a bite. It's nice. A little peppery, sort of sweet. Only a couple thousand more bites and he gets a comped meal and a t-shirt, and the satisfaction of a job well done. The waitstaff is eyeing him nervously.

Around the one-third mark, Ben's just starting to realize what a bad idea this whole Stegasaurus Steak thing was. He experiences a brief loss of momentum that results in a pre-chewed chunk of food nearly falling out of his slack mouth before he manages to catch it with a deft little scoop of his tongue. He closes his lips back over the very large morsel and keeps chewing.

"Dude," Pete says, "If I could do that with my tongue, Deb would be sitting on my face all the time. Like literally all the time. Our children would go wild. They'd have to become scavengers."

Ben almost chokes. Doesn't do Pete the courtesy of swallowing before he speaks.

"Do you have money riding on this? Have you placed some sort of wager? Because that is the only reason I can possibly think of for why you would bring up the subject of your wife's pussy right at this moment."

"Oh, come on, like you haven't thought about it."

Ben swallows, suddenly very focused on slicing off another chunk of steak.

"You have," Pete says, and it's not a question. "You've thought about the sister swap. Hell, I've thought about it. Dude, there's nothing wrong with it, it's not like it's actually gonna happen. Unless we get caught in a time tunnel and all start wearing polyester pant suits and, like, throw a key party or something. Hey, wanna..."

"Stop right there if you want to keep your balls," Ben says, pointing his fork at Pete before forcing another bite down his own throat.

"You're right, I think we'd have a better shot at convincing them to make out with each other."

"By 'better shot' you mean..."

"Numbers don't go that low."

Ben looks down at the mangled steak. There's still more than half of it on the plate and he's been at this nonstop for almost an hour.

"We should have asked if you get bathroom breaks," Pete says.

"Fuck it," Ben says. "I'm winning us that shirt. We deserve that shirt."

He stabs the meat with renewed zeal.

"We'll share custody," Pete says.

Damn right they will.

 

 

5.

_Shed those unwanted pounds! - Dieting for Dummies_

"Uh. Thanks, Debbie."

"I just thought you might want to slim down a little, you know? Get healthy."

"Deb!" Alison says. "How is that an appropriate Christmas present?"

"What?" Debbie says, defensive. "First you say I don't care enough, now you're giving me shit for trying?"

"You're unbelievable," Alison says.

"You have to admit the guy's on the hefty side," Debbie says, and Ben squirms, leaning down to prop the book against the leg of his chair, mostly so he doesn't have to look at it anymore. "I'm just trying to help him out before he turns into one of those fat people who drive the little motor scooters with American flags sticking out of the back. What's so wrong about that?"

"Debbie, for the last time, those people are actually sick! Like, with a disease!"

Alison's on her feet now, looking like she's about to stomp out of the room. Instead, she starts scooping up scraps of wrapping paper.

"That's what I'm _saying_ ," Debbie says, rolling her eyes. She leans back on the couch, takes a sip of wine. "Anyway, Ben doesn't care. He doesn't even celebrate Christmas. This is just like any boring old Tuesday to him. Right, Ben?"

Ben keeps his mouth shut, because saying yes right now would mean there's a remote possibility that he'll never see Alison naked again, and saying no would suck him into the fight, which he'd like to avoid.

Unfortunately, the lack of response comes off a lot like "My feelings are so hurt I can't form words to express it." Which leads to awkward silence all around.

Sadie chooses this exact moment to wander in and climb onto the couch next to her dad.

"What's going on?" she says, voice warbly with sleep.

Pete cups his hands around her ear and whispers something to her, and suddenly she giggles and runs back to her room, heels thumping hard against the floor. It's even worse on her way back, and Deb yells, "Indoor steps please!" as the dishes rattle in the cupboards.

Sadie runs right up to Ben, stops short and drops a sheet of paper in his lap.

"I drew this picture of you," she says. "Well, you and aunt Alison and Amy. See?"

It's blue marker, just a line drawing, and in Ben's opinion an eight year-old should be able to do much better than this, but he's not going to say that, because he has tact, unlike some other people he could mention. Also because she drew him to resemble a large potato, neckless with a frightening mound of curly hair. He's at least twice the size of the Alison figure, with her long, smooth hair and big smile. The baby shares his potato-like physique, but then. It's a baby.

Ben looks up and Pete is snickering behind his hand, not hiding it well at all.

"Wow, Sadie," Ben says, feeling the eyes of the entire room on him now. "That's... wow. Really good. Can I keep this?"

"Whatever," she says. Shrugs like she couldn't care less.

"Thanks."

"What do we say?" Debbie says, looking just as amused as her husband now. Even Alison's furious flush is starting to fade to a nice rosy hue.

"You're welcome. Merry Christmas."

When Sadie leaves, Pete starts full-out laughing.

"Yeah, Merry Christmas, Fatty McJew."

"Fuck you," Ben says.

"Not if I fuck you first."

"Oh yeah?" Ben says, and he untucks his shirt and digs his fingers into his belly flab on both sides. "You want some of my bowl full of jelly?"

"Maybe I do," Pete says. "Maybe I want to blow a big fat raspberry right on that big boy."

"Hot," Deb says, rolling her eyes.

Alison scoots her chair closer to Ben's and sits so their shoulders and hips touch. She takes the drawing from him, examines it carefully.

"You know this is going on our fridge, right?" she says, all mischief.

Yeah, he knows.

 

 

 


End file.
